Modern resilient and hard flooring materials are often coated with polymer coatings which may be natural or synthetic polymers, sometimes referred to as “floor waxes”. These coating materials can impart various types of finish to the floors. Acrylic polymers are often used on such floors where a transparent, glossy finish is desired. Following application of the coating materials, the floor must be periodically swept, scrubbed and polished to restore the shine worn by foot and other traffic on the floor. For glossy floors, the burnishing and other operations may be performed daily.
Cleaning of polymer coated resilient and hard floor materials has traditionally comprised the operations of sweeping, scrubbing and burnishing. These operations are generally performed separately in the recited order. The coated floor is initially swept or dust mopped to remove dust and larger debris particles so that they will not be acted upon by the scrubbing and/or burnishing steps that follow and cause discoloration or damage to the floor coating. After sweeping, the floor is cleaned by scrubbing with water and other additives such as soaps, surfactants and the like and left to dry under ambient conditions, with or without bulk liquid being first removed by a squeegee operation separate from, or in conjunction with, the scrubbing operation. After scrubbing, the dry floor coating may be burnished with a burnishing device to provide a luster or shine to the coating surface which is an appearance often desired in commercial buildings. The burnisher is typically a propane powered device which rotates a flat, circular polishing pad at relatively high speed to polish the floor coating.
The above operations have generally been performed manually in three separate steps. More recently, mechanical, powered sweepers, scrubbers and burnishers have become available. Often a single operator will perform the operations serially.